Broadening the Participation of Women and Underrepresented Racial/Ethnic Minorities in STEM: A Mata-Analytic Lens on the Social Cognitive Interest, Choice and PersistenceHypotheses

许多人呼吁扩大和多样化国家在科学、技术、工程和数学(STEM)领域的劳动力。作为对这些呼吁的回应，关于心理和社会变量的文献越来越多，这些变量可能会预测和促进参与STEM相关的教育和职业选择。社会认知职业理论已被证明是指导STEM参与和保留的许多研究的有用框架，包括侧重于妇女和代表性不足的种族/族裔少数群体参与STEM领域的研究。拟议的项目将使用元分析方法来整合超过45项个体研究的结果，这些研究已经在STEM领域测试了SCCT的假设。这一元分析的结果将：(A)加强对科学、技术和经济领域参与的理论机制的了解；(B)能够评估科学、技术和经济研究在性别和种族/族裔方面的普适性；(C)为旨在吸引和留住科学、技术和经济领域不同人员的以科学、技术和技术为基础的干预措施提供强有力的经验基础。参与组织包括马里兰大学(小学)和奥尔巴尼大学、纽约州立大学(合作伙伴)。该项目的潜在受众包括研究人员、实践者、教育工作者和政策制定者，他们对扩大妇女和代表不足的种族/族裔少数群体在STEM领域的参与感兴趣。该项目将采用元分析方法，综合32年(1981年至2013年)期间进行的个别研究的结果。纳入荟萃分析的研究将通过全面搜索在线数据库和人工搜索相关期刊来获得。在STEM领域中，将使用单变量和多变量(结构方程模型)统计技术来整合双变量效应大小，并测试性别和种族/民族的SCCT模型。元分析结果旨在为STEM政策制定者、教育工作者、研究人员、辅导员和其他专业人员提供基于理论和经验支持的因素，促进未被充分代表的人参与STEM领域的因素。这一理解可用于为扩大STEM管道多样性的干预措施提供信息。该项目还将提供培训和指导不同的研究生和初级教员群体的机会(该团队将包括女性和有色人种学生)，培养他们进行理论驱动的研究的能力，并为未来关于STEM参与的公平性研究建设能力。该项目创建的资源(例如，元分析码本、STEM领域的SCCT研究数据库、相关矩阵)将提供给其他研究人员。研究小组将通过会议报告、期刊出版物、项目网站和制定循证实践指南等方式，向科学、教育和其他社区广泛传播研究结果。

There have been numerous calls to expand and diversify the nation's workforce in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. In response to these calls, there has been a growing literature on psychological and social variables that might predict and promote engagement in STEM-related educational and career options. Social cognitive career theory (SCCT) has proven to be a useful framework for guiding many studies of STEM engagement and retention, including research focused on women's and underrepresented racial/ethnic minorities' participation in STEM fields. The proposed project will use meta-analytic methods to integrate findings from over 45 individual studies that have tested SCCT's hypotheses in the STEM domain. The findings of this meta-analysis will (a) enhance understanding of theoretical mechanisms that underlie engagement in STEM fields; (b) enable assessment of SCCT's generalizability across gender and race/ethnicity; and (c) provide a robust empirical basis for SCCT-based interventions designed to attract and retain diverse persons within STEM careers. Participating organizations include University of Maryland (primary) and University at Albany, State University of New York (partner). The potential audience for this project includes researchers, practitioners, educators, and policy makers who are interested in broadening the participation of women and underrepresented racial/ethnic minorities in STEM fields. The project will employ a meta-analytic approach to synthesize the findings of individual studies that have been conducted over a period of 32 years (1981 to 2013). The studies to be included in the meta-analysis will be obtained through a comprehensive search of online data bases and a manual search of relevant journals. Both univariate and multivariate (structural equation modeling) statistical techniques will be used to integrate bivariate effect sizes and test SCCT models by gender and race/ethnicity in the context of STEM fields.The meta-analytic findings are intended to provide STEM policy makers, educators, researchers, counselors, and other professionals with a theory-based and empirically-supported understanding of factors that promote the engagement of underrepresented people in STEM fields. This understanding can be used to inform interventions for expanding the diversity of the STEM pipeline. The project will also provide opportunities to train and mentor a diverse group of graduate students and junior faculty members (the team will include women and students of color), fostering their ability to perform theory-driven research and building capacity for future studies on equity in STEM participation. Resources created by the project (e.g., meta-analytic codebooks, a database of SCCT research in STEM fields, correlation matrices) will be made available to other researchers. The research team will disseminate the findings widely to scientific, education, and other communities through such means as conference presentations, journal publications, a project website, and development of evidence-based practice guidelines.